“They must really think we’re stupid.” That is what people all over the world are saying about the American government and media’s portrayal of world events.

Several weeks ago, an interviewer said to Russian President Putin: “NATO claims the missile shield was not built against you but against Iran.” Putin broke out laughing. When the laughter finally subsided, Putin said: “You really make me laugh. God bless you because it’s almost time to finish the day… indeed it’s already time to go to sleep. At least I get home in good humor.”

No sane person could seriously assert that NATO’s missile shield circling Russia is intended to protect the West from Iran. Yet, that is exactly what NATO – the imperial American occupation army in Europe – tells the world. How stupid do they think we are?

Governments lie. Imperial governments construct vast empires of lies. But in the past, most official lies carried at least a thin veneer of plausibility. Today, the US government and its media echo chamber do not seem to care whether their lies are even slightly credible.

The Ukraine crisis has been a non-stop festival of American lies, each one more ridiculous than the last.

First they told us that the protestors against Ukraine’s legitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych, were heroes who love democracy and hate corruption. In fact, the protestors were an oversized rent-a-mob led by Nazi thugs and Zionist crime oligarchs, bought and paid for by the five billion dollars the US spent undermining Ukraine’s democracy.

Then they told us that the “heroic protestors” were being gunned down by Yanukovych’s forces. In fact, it was NATO’s Operation Gladio snipers who were doing the false-flag shootings.

They claimed that Yanukovych “fled” the presidency. In fact, he was overthrown by a typical CIA putsch while traveling; since he never stepped down, Yanukovych is still the legitimate, democratically-elected president of Ukraine.

They claimed that Putin was “intransigent” for refusing negotiations. In fact, the US insisted that Russia recognize the illegitimate Nazi putsch government in Kiev as a precondition for negotiations – which would have made negotiations moot.

They claimed that Putin was an aggressor in Crimea. The truth is that the people of Crimea voted by a 97% landslide to join the Russian Federation – as was their right under the principle of self-determination, a cornerstone of international law.

They claimed that the anti-Kiev protests in Eastern Ukraine are some kind of Russian plot. The reality is that the people of Eastern Ukraine are up in arms because they have no desire to be governed by an illegitimate regime of NATO terrorists, IMF austerity looters, Zionist crime oligarchs, and Nazi thugs.

They claimed that the anti-Kiev forces were forcing Jews to register themselves. In fact, the “Jews must register” leaflets were another Operation Gladio style false-flag provocation by NATO.

They claimed that last week’s Odessa Massacre was somehow Russia’s fault. In fact, NATO’s neo-Nazi thugs chased pro-Russia protestors into the Trade Unions Building, burned them to death, and strangled survivors trying to escape – the result, intentional or not, of another Operation Gladio false flag provocation.

Here is how the New York Times concealed the truth about the Odessa Massacre: “Violence also erupted Friday in the previously calmer port city of Odessa, on the Black Sea, where dozens of people died in a fire related to clashes that broke out between protesters holding a march for Ukrainian unity and pro-Russian activists.”

As an English teacher at three major American universities, I always instructed students to begin sentences with a specific subject and verb that clearly express “who does what.” In this case, “NATO-backed Nazi thugs” are the who, and “chased pro-Russian protestors into a building and burned and strangled them to death” are the what.

Instead, the New York Times begins its sentence with an abstraction, “violence,” that just somehow “erupted.” We are told that “dozens of people died in a fire,” but we are not told who killed them, simply that the fire was “related to clashes.”

George Orwell, author of “Politics and the English Language,” must be rolling over in his grave.

Does anyone in the world really believe anything John Kerry and the US mainstream media are saying about Ukraine? Expressions like “credulous dupe” do not even begin to describe the type of person who would be taken in by such brazen falsehoods.

Fortunately, there are signs that the world is not as stupid as the American establishment thinks it is. The people of Eastern Ukraine are united in their refusal to kowtow to the criminals in Kiev, and much of the world supports them. At the end of the day, the most economically advanced and strategic part of Ukraine is likely to become a fervently anti-NATO, anti-New World Order bulwark.

US-NATO lies are failing in Ukraine just as they failed in Syria, where President Assad is expected to win re-election on June 3rd and preside over an ever-more-united, ever-more-peaceful nation. The turning point in Syria was the failure of the al-Ghouta false flag in August, which the US and its Zionist lobby unsuccessfully tried to blame on Assad. More recently, another false flag plot by Turkish leaders, who were scheming to attack their own country and blame it on Assad, was exposed.

As in Ukraine, the American narrative about Syria has completely collapsed. The US and its puppets always insisted that the Syrian opposition was peaceful, democratic, and committed to human rights, while Assad’s government was the source of all atrocities. But as the smoke clears, it has become apparent that Syria, like Ukraine, was destabilized by NATO and its Operation Gladio minions.

The trouble in Syria began in the same way as in Ukraine: A mob of NATO hirelings and their deluded followers was sent into the street to be shot at by Operation Gladio false-flag snipers. The shootings were falsely blamed on the government; civil war was incited; and NATO-backed thugs and extremists went to war against the legitimate government – all according to plan. This is what the CIA has been doing all over the world since it overthrew Iran’s Mossadegh in 1953 and Guatemala’s Guzman in 1954.

Today, more and more people around the world are waking up to the manipulations and deceptions of the mainstream US narrative. Yet rather than reining in their falsehoods – the sane response to today’s interconnected hyper-mediated world – our US-NATO imperial masters keep pumping up the lies till they explode.

They must really, REALLY think we’re stupid.

Then again, if they can convince us that 19 debauched pseudo-Muslims led by a terminal kidney patient in a cave in Afghanistan could outwit the world’s most advanced air defense systems and blow up three buildings with two planes, they have good reason to think we are stupid enough to believe almost anything.